Courage
by Feilyn
Summary: Rangiku interrupts Nanao in her work once again. It's getting to be a habit now, and Nanao finds it far to...distracting. If only she could make the other woman listen. Un Fortunately for her, Rangiku has always had a mind of her own. Rangiku/Nanao


_LatelatelatelateLATE giftfic for **laulupidu**. Much love to you, Kaitypie!_

xXx_  
_

"You're drunk, Rangiku." Nanao gave the sigh of one long suffering, adjusting her glasses before they slipped down her nose.

"I am not," the older woman protested, quite comfortable in her position of draped across Nanao's back. "I'm tipsy. There's a distinct difference. If you weren't so _boring_, you know it," she sang.

Nanao absently shifted one of the hands lying loosely across her chest in order to get a better view of her paperwork. Rangiku's breasts pressed lightly against her back, but she ignored that. "If being responsible makes me boring, then I am _boring_."

A sigh, equally long suffering, settled against Nanao's neck. Her brush paused briefly before continuing in its meticulous work. "No fun at all," Rangiku insisted.

"I will not go drinking with you, no matter how you taunt me," Nanao replied. "I swear, Rangiku, you are almost as bad as Kyouraku-taichō."

A low chuckle sounded, and the dark-haired woman could have sworn it was intentional if not for the fact that Rangiku laughed like that all the time. Nanao could have paused to examine why that bothered her so much, but she didn't.

"Nanao-chan is so cruel to me," her friend bemoaned, resting her chin on an available shoulder. She ruined the near perfect pout by laughing. "No, I think you'll find I'm much worse."

"Oh?" Nanao raised an eyebrow, not turning her head. Her calm tone belied her distraction. It was the paperwork. Very complicated. Clearly distracting. How it could be distracting her from the fact that she was meant to be doing paperwork, Nanao wasn't sure. But that certainly wasn't the point. "I rather doubt that. Kyouraku-taichō is exceedingly skilled at being an irritant and distracting me—" She swatted at Rangiku's hand, which was waving in her face. "—and _distracting_ me from my work."

"Yes," Rangiku agreed easily, leaning more heavily against Nanao's back as she craned her neck to look at what she was doing, before turning her to look her in the eye. "But I bet you never let Shunsui get this close to you, hmm?"

There was a definite halt in the writing this time, Nanao's hand stopping in its smooth motion as she stared into crystal clear eyes that weren't icy in the slightest. In fact, she was pretty sure they were laughing at her. "...You really are drunk."

The blue eyes shone with good humour, but there was a serious note behind them that few would have known the blonde well enough to see. She wondered at its presence, and then decided that Rangiku's eyes were _really_ not a good thing to be concentrating on when they were so close.

"I'm no-ot," she teased. For all that she was leaning again Nanao, the woman noted absently, she appeared to be taking most of her weight on herself. That did not change the fact that Rangiku's considerable assets were right— "Why do you wish I was, huh?"

Nanao didn't have an answer to that one.

"Would you – would you please let me go, Rangiku?" she said instead. Her voice cracked on the first go, so she had to try again. The room was suddenly inordinately warm. She had _told_ her Captain not to mess with the heating system.

A pause, and Nanao felt them teetering on the edge of serious before her friend gave a heavy sigh that hurt her heart to think on, and the moment fell, Rangiku leaning back and letting her arms slip away. And suddenly it wasn't so hot anymore, but rather oddly cold.

Silence, as Rangiku positioned herself on her usual perch at the edge of Nanao's desk, and Nanao herself struggled for something to say. The other woman accosted her on a daily basis, but never like this. It was like...well, it had never happened before, this heavy feeling in the air, so Nanao did not have an adequate comparison.

"Was there—" Nanao cut herself off, staring down at her paperwork. The words swam together slightly, not making any sense, as Rangiku regarded her calmly. The woman's teasing demeanour was gone now, and Nanao abruptly had a desperate wish to have it back. As irritating as the woman could be (and she could be _very_ irritating), it was a part of who she was. A serious Rangiku tended to be an unhappy Rangiku.

She tried again.

"Was there something you wanted to ask?" Her voice was cool, calm and collected. Or at least, that's what she told herself.

She watched Rangiku consider the question.

"If I'm drunk," the woman said finally. "Which I'm not. But if I was drunk – what's your excuse?"

Nanao stared. "Pardon? Excuse...excuse for what?"

There were several different answers that the vice-captain of the Eight Division could have expected in response to her query. Those answers, while wide and varied, did not include Rangiku saying "For letting me do this," with a cryptic look in her eye before leaning across the desk to kiss her.

It took Nanao a moment to realise exactly was happening, she was so shocked, and by that time Rangiku had pulled away. It was a fleeting kiss, really, almost undeserving of the name. Nonetheless, Nanao found herself quite unable to catch her breath, because suddenly everything was making a great deal of sense.

She blinked at Rangiku, who was still really very close. "...Oh."

The other woman's lips quirked up in a nervous smile. "Is that 'oh, good?'"

Nanao ignored the question. "...You're very close, Rangiku," she told her friend.

Rangiku's face fell what seemed a million miles, and Nanao's heart with it. The blonde's happy-face slammed back into place as she leaned away sharply, saying – "Oops! My bad, sorry about that, I'll just be—"

"No!" Nanao protested, galvanised into action. Her hand shot out and grabbed Rangiku's wrist before the woman could hop off her desk completely. "No, I mean – it's very difficult – I hate to—" For quite possibly the first time in her life, Nanao was lost for words, so she simply took her glasses off and set them carefully to one side. It was quite difficult to manoeuvre them when someone was close enough to kiss, after all.

Understand dawned across Rangiku's face as her mask of a smile drained away, leaving only the genuine article behind. "Oh," was all she said.

Nanao, on the contrary, didn't say anything (this was possibly because, had she tried to speak, nothing more than a gurgle was likely to come out). Instead, she slid a hand behind her ridiculous, wonderful best friend's neck and pulled her close again. She could have said something witty or profound to make the moment more climactic, but she was too busy being kissed by Rangiku, who, having been given the go ahead, was taking full advantage of Nanao's acquiescence. She was pretty sure that this wasn't how such moments were meant to go, that there was meant to be some grand pause before the kissing started, like the kissing was the icing on the proverbial cake or something, but Rangiku was doing something amazing with her tongue and Nanao really couldn't bring herself to care.

Her fingers twitched slightly against Rangiku's neck, eyes closing as the kiss deepened, and she'd always known that the other woman was a good kisser in the same way that you knew a high quality pen when you watched someone else write with it, but experiencing it was nothing like writing at all. Here came the meaningful pause, except that it wasn't anything more meaningful than a necessary break for air before someone that was _certainly_ not Nanao made some sort of ridiculously needy, frustrated sound and jerked Rangiku back for another kiss.

"Wait. Wait." The other woman pulled away again, and this time not to catch her breath. For one horrible moment, Nanao was terrified that something had gone horribly wrong, that there was some sort of mistake, that maybe Rangiku really was drunk or something. "Uhm. Wait."

And then Nanao's fears proved unfounded as Rangiku appeared to gather her thoughts, and simply slid off the desk and onto Nanao's lap, a leg on either side of her, knocking the meticulous stack of paperwork over as she did so. "Okay. That's better. My back has enough problems without doing it in with horrible kissing angles."

Nanao blinked over at the paperwork once, before returning to Rangiku's pale blue gaze. The woman looked inordinately pleased with herself.

"...Oh, shut up," Nanao muttered to that slightly smug look.

She didn't have to look at it for long. Rangiku leaned forward again, kissing her briefly on the corner of the mouth before whispering kisses along her jaw. Nanao flushed bright red as the woman started on the long line of her neck.

"R-Rangiku, we're in the middle of my office."

Wicked blue eyes glanced up at her. "So?" was all the answer she received before Rangiku returned to her neck, sucking lightly on a sensitive spot near the dark-haired woman's ear.

The sensation startled a moan out of her, and she felt Rangiku's answering grin against her neck. "So – So..." And then she trailed off, unable to remember what it was that she had been going to say, let alone what she was protesting against.

"Aw, you do love me," Rangiku teased, leaning back in a move that would have seemed almost casual to anyone else. Even distracted as she was, however, Nanao could sense the seriousness behind the playful tone.

"...I guess I do," she said, after a moment's pause. The other woman's answering grin nearly made her heart stop. She really needed to stop reading those cheap romances.

"Okay," Rangiku replied, relieved sigh only barely noticeable. "It's good to know the feeling's mutual, then."

Nanao would have said something in response, but she was too busy kissing Rangiku to bother.

Later – much later – a thought struck Nanao as she idly twisted a lock of strawberry-blonde hair around her finger.

"Rangiku."

"Hmm?" The other woman stirred, sleepily. The office was locked, and they were entangled together on the futon Nanao kept there for when her Division was inundated with paperwork.

"How did you know I was going to kiss back?" She was curious to know what it was about her behaviour that had given her away.

A long moment passed, before Rangiku twisted around to face her. "I didn't."

"Oh." Nanao thought about that. "...You're very brave"

Rangiku grinned, but at the same time looked slightly abashed. "I don't know about that," she laughed. "Liquid courage goes a long way. Oh, don't look at me like that," she told the suspicious look on Nanao's face. "I made the decision to tell you before I came here. I just needed a little help to. You know. Actually get out the door."

Nanao could have argued, but considering that she hadn't even gotten so far as to place her hand on the metaphorical door handle, decided against it. After all, there were far more enjoyable things to be doing with a beautiful woman in your arms than arguing with her.


End file.
